Marianne and the Rebels

by Жюльетта Бенцони

  'He doesn't know what's the matter with me,' Marianne said faintly. 'How can he make me better?'

  'I don't know but he assured me it was a certain cure for the seasickness and disorders of the stomach. You never know… the medicine might do you good, my lady. You ought to try it.'

  Marianne hesitated for a moment, then she dragged herself painfully upright among her pillows and held out her hand.

  'Give it to me, then,' she sighed. 'You may be right. In any case, I feel so ill that I'd be glad to accept poison from the Borgias themselves! Anything rather than go on like this!'

  Agathe made her mistress as comfortable as she could and sponged her clammy forehead with a cloth soaked in eau-de-Cologne before putting the glass to her lips.

  Marianne sipped cautiously, half-convinced that she would not be able to keep the potion down for five minutes. She drained the glass to the last drop, all the same, and, amazingly, felt no trace of nausea.

  It had a queer taste, faintly bitter yet sweetish, but not unpleasant. There was some kind of spirit in it which burned a little as it went down but revived her. Gradually, the spasms of nausea that had racked her for the past two days diminished and finally ceased altogether, leaving only a profound sense of exhaustion and a longing for sleep.

  Marianne's eyelids drooped irresistibly but, before she closed her eyes, she smiled with sleepy gratitude at Agathe, who was watching her anxiously from the foot of the bed.

  'You were quite right, Agathe. I feel much better. I think I'll sleep now. You get some rest as well, but go and thank Doctor Leighton first. I must have misjudged him, you know, and now I'm ashamed.'

  'Oh, there's nothing to be ashamed about,' Agathe said. 'He may be a good doctor but I'll never manage to bring myself to like him. Besides, it's his job to tend the sick. But don't worry, my lady, I'll go.'

  Agathe found John Leighton on the forecastle in low-toned converse with Arroyo. Since she liked the boatswain no better than the doctor, she waited for him to go away before delivering her message. When she thanked the doctor on her mistress's behalf, she was bewildered to see him laugh.

  'What's so funny about that?' she demanded indignantly. 'It's very nice of my lady to say thank you! You were only doing your job, after all!'

  'As you say,' Leighton agreed. 'I was only doing my job. I do not need her thanks.'

  Turning his back upon the abigail, he went away aft, still laughing. Agathe flounced back to the cabin to tell her mistress but found Marianne sleeping so peacefully that she had not the heart to wake her. So she tidied the cabin, let in some fresh air and then went to bed herself, with the satisfaction of a job well done.

  Dawn was just breaking when there came a violent hammering on the cabin door, waking Marianne with a start. Agathe, who had taken the precaution of leaving her own door ajar, woke also. Although in general a heavy sleeper, she had been sleeping remarkably lightly since coming on board and now she tumbled out of bed in a moment, still half in a dream, and crying out in terror: 'What is it? What's happened? Oh, Lord, we're sinking!'

  'I don't think so, Agathe,' Marianne said calmly, propping herself up on her elbow. 'It is only someone banging on the door. Don't open it. It's probably some drunken sailor.'

  The blows were redoubled and in a moment they heard Jason's voice shouting furiously:

  'Are you going to open this damned door or do I have to break it down?'

  'Oh, Lord, my lady!' wailed Agathe. 'It's Monsieur Beaufort! He sounds ever so angry, too… What do you think he wants?'

  Jason undoubtedly sounded beside himself with fury and there was a note in the harsh, thickened voice which sent a thrill of fear down Marianne's spine.

  'I don't know, but we'll have to let him in, Agathe,' she said. 'He'll do as he says and if we let him break the door down it will only make matters worse.'

  The shivering Agathe put a shawl over her nightgown and went to open it. She had barely time to flatten herself against the bulkhead before it was flung back in her face and Jason burst into the room like a cannon shot. At the sight of him, Marianne let out a scream.

  In the red glow of the rising sun, he looked like a devil. His hair was standing on end, his neckcloth hanging loose and his shirt unfastened to the waist, and he had the brick-red complexion and glassy eyes of a man in the last stages of drunkenness. Drunk he certainly was, and Marianne's nostrils quivered at the heavy odour of rum that filled the cabin.

  Yet she was suddenly too frightened to have any thought to spare for being ill. Never had she seen Jason in such a state. There was madness in his eyes and he was grinding his teeth as he advanced on her with terrible slowness.

  Agathe, equally terrified but ready to defend her mistress at all costs, tried to fling herself between them. One glance at his tensely-working fingers had convinced her that he meant to strangle Marianne, a conviction that her mistress fully shared. But Jason seized her ruthlessly by the shoulders and propelled her, heedless of her protests, out of the cabin and locked the door on her. Then he turned back to Marianne who was shrinking back against the wall behind her cot, trying desperately to press herself bodily into the silk and mahogany furnishings. She read her death in Jason's eyes.

  'You, Marianne…' he snarled, 'you are with child?'

  She uttered a cry of terror, denial springing automatically to her lips:

  'No! No, it's not true…'

  'Come, come! That was it, wasn't it? Your fainting and your sickness and your upset stomach! You're big with child, by God knows who! But I mean to know… I'm going to find out whose bed you've wallowed in now! Who was it this time, eh? That Corsican lieutenant of yours? The Duke of Padua? Your phantom husband, or your Emperor? Answer me! By God, I'll make you speak!'

  He had one knee on the bed and his hands round Marianne's throat were forcing her back among the tumbled sheets, but his grip had relaxed.

  'You're mad!' she croaked at him in terror. 'Who told you this?'

  'Who? Why Leighton, of course! You felt better, didn't you, after his potion? But you don't know what it was he dosed you with. It's what they give to pregnant negresses on board the slavers to keep them alive until the voyage ends. They can't afford to let them die, you see, not when it's two lives for the price of one!'

  Marianne was filled with an overriding horror that made her forget her fear for a moment. It was Jason saying these horrible things, using these foul words! With a supple movement, she jerked herself free and crouched back in the corner of the alcove, hands up to protect her throat.

  'On board the slavers! Are you telling me you've dealt in that filthy trade?'

  'Why not? It's hugely profitable!'

  'So – that smell?'

  'Aha! You noticed it? It's true, it clings. There's no amount of scrubbing can quite get rid of it. Yet I only carried black ivory the once – to oblige a friend. But we weren't talking of what I've done, but of you. I swear to you I mean to make you talk!'

  He pounced on her again, dragging her out of her refuge, trying to get his hands round her neck once more. But by now anger and disappointment had come to Marianne's aid. She hit him, hard, sending him staggering back off the bunk, the alcohol in his system impairing his balance, to crash heavily into a chair which broke under his weight.

  There was a fresh knocking on the door and Jolival's voice made itself heard. Marianne guessed that Agathe must have run to him for help.

  'Open up, Beaufort!' called the Vicomte. 'I must speak to you.'

  Jason struggled to his feet and went over to the door but he did not open it.

  'Well I don't want to speak to you,' he snarled. 'Take yourself off! My business is with the lady!'

  'Don't be a fool, Beaufort! And don't do anything you'll be sorry for afterwards! Let me in—'

  There was fear in his voice, the same fear that gripped Marianne, but Jason only laughed again, with that dreadful laughter that was not his own.

  'Why should I let you in? So that you can tell me how she got herself pregnant
? Or is it your own part as pander you want to explain?'

  'You're drunk! You're out of your mind! Why not open the door?'

  'Oh, but I will, my dear friend, I will… when I've dealt with this drab here as she deserves!'

  'She is a sick woman! You aren't normally a coward, have you forgotten?'

  'I've forgotten nothing!'

  He swung round from the door and sprang at Marianne so suddenly that she was taken by surprise. Hurled violently to the deck, she screamed aloud, as much from terror as from hurt.

  In another moment, the door burst open under the combined attack of Jolival and Gracchus. They almost fell into the room, Agathe on their heels, and snatched Marianne away from Jason, who appeared to have the fixed intention of strangling her. At the same time, Agathe seized a big water jug and flung the contents full in his face. He spluttered and shook himself like a dog, but slowly a spark of life began to show in his glazed eyes.

  Sobered, to some extent at least, he tossed back the black hair dripping in his eyes and glared bitterly at the little group. Agathe had helped Marianne to her bed and after a brief, compassionate glance at the motionless form, Arcadius turned to Jason, shaking his head sadly at the ravaged face where the marks of suffering had bitten deeper than anger.

  'I should have made her tell you the truth,' he said quietly, 'but she would not. She was afraid, horribly afraid of what you would say.'

  'Was she?'

  'Judging by what had just happened, she had every reason to be! But I give you my word of honour as a gentleman, Beaufort, that she was in no way to blame for what occurred. She was raped, appallingly. Will you let me tell you the whole dreadful story?'

  'No! I can easily imagine your fertile imagination will have invented a splendid tale, calculated to appease my anger and to make me more her slave than ever. Unfortunately I do not want to hear it.'

  Before Jolival could utter another word, Jason had taken the whistle he wore on a chain round his neck and blown three sharp blasts. At once, the boatswain appeared, framed in the broken doorway. Other men were visible behind him so that it seemed probable that half the crew had been listening eagerly.

  Jason indicated Jolival and Gracchus.

  'Put these men in irons, until further orders.'

  'You have no right!'

  Marianne had come to her senses and, despite Agathe's efforts to restrain her, had sprung to her friend's side. She was overpowered in a moment.

  'I have every right,' the American retorted. 'I am sole master after God aboard this ship!'

  'If I were you,' Jolival observed, moving calmly to the door, a seaman on either side of him, 'I should leave God out of this. The real winner here is the devil… and your friend the doctor, of course. Honest, honest Iago – as Shakespeare so aptly puts it.'

  'We'll leave Dr Leighton out of this.'

  'Indeed? Even though he broke his Hippocratic oath by betraying Marianne's condition?'

  'He was not called to attend her. Therefore she was not his patient!'

  'A nice, specious bit of reasoning – that did not come from you. Suppose we say he laid a trap, the basest kind of trap, concealing it under charity, and you applaud him for it! It's not like you, Jason.'

  'Take him away, I said,' Jason roared. 'What are you waiting for?'

  Gracchus fought like a tiger as the crew dragged them away but he was heavily outnumbered. Even so, as he was hustled past Jason, he managed to wrench them to a halt for a moment and looked straight into his eyes, his own hot with indignation.

  'To think I once loved and admired you!' he said in a voice in which bitterness and desperation vied with anger. 'Mademoiselle Marianne would 'a' done better to 'ave left you to rot in prison at Brest, for if you didn't deserve it then, you deserve it now!'

  Then, having spat on the ground to show his contempt, Gracchus let them take him away. The cabin emptied, leaving Jason and Marianne face to face.

  In spite of himself, the privateer's eyes had followed the departing figure of Gracchus. He had paled under that furious outburst, and clenched his fists, but he had made no other move. Yet it seemed to Marianne that his eyes had darkened for a moment with a shade of regret.

  The violent scene which had just taken place in her cabin had succeeded in restoring all her courage at a stroke. She was a natural fighter. It was her element and she felt at home in it. In a way, too, however disastrous the consequences, it was a relief to her to be done with the stifling atmosphere of lies and deceit. Jason's blind and jealous rage was after all a kind of loving, even though he might have rejected the idea with loathing, but it was a devouring and, perhaps, an all-consuming fire. In a few moments the love by which she had lived for so long might be reduced to nothing more than ashes – and her own heart with it.

  Agathe had remained crouching by the bed. Like an automaton, Jason went to her and taking her by the arm, quite gently, took her to her own cabin and locked her in. Marianne watched him in silence, hugging round her the thick shawl which she had flung over her thin nightgown. He turned and saw her standing facing him, her head held high. There was anguish in her green eyes but they met him squarely.

  'Now you can finish what you have begun,' she said steadily, letting the shawl drop just sufficiently to disclose the darkening bruises on her slender neck. 'All I ask is that you get it over quickly. Unless you'd rather hang me from the yard-arm in sight of all the crew?'

  'Neither. I meant to kill you just now, I admit. I should have been sorry all my life. One does not kill such women as you. As for hanging you from the yard-arm, I fear I lack the appetite for melodrama which you, no doubt, picked up in treading the boards. In any case, you must be aware that while my crew might well enjoy the sight, it wouldn't please your watchdogs quite as much. I've no wish to be sunk by a brace of Napoleon's frigates.'

  'Then what do you propose doing with me and my friends? You might as well put me in irons along with them.'

  'Unnecessary. You'll stay here until we drop anchor at Piraeus. I'll put you ashore there, with your friends, and you can find yourself another vessel to take you on to Constantinople.'

  Marianne's heart quailed. If he could talk like this, then his love for her must be dead indeed!

  'Is that how you keep your promises?' she said. 'Didn't you engage to carry me to a proper port?'

  'One port is much like another. Piraeus will do very well. From Athens you will have no difficulty in reaching the Turkish capital – and I shall be well rid of you, once and for all.'

  He spoke quite slowly, without apparent anger, but in a heavy, exhausted voice in which to the thickening caused by drink was now added a note of disgust. In spite of all her anger and her grief, Marianne felt her heart moved with a kind of desperate pity. Jason looked like a man wounded to death. Very softly she asked:

  'Is that really all you want? Never to see me again… never? For our ways to part… never to meet again?'

  He had turned away from her and was looking out of the porthole at the sea, its deep blue struck into a myriad flashing sparks by the sun's fire. Marianne had an odd feeling that her words, penetrating, only served to harden him.

  'That is what I want,' he said at last.

  'Then, dare to look me in the face and tell me.'

  He came to her, slowly and stood looking at her. The sunlight, entering the cabin, bathed her in light. The red shawl clutched about her shoulders was a garment of flame and the heavy masses of dark hair that fell about her pale, strained face, accentuated its almost transparent whiteness. With the bruises on her throat, she was as beautiful and tragic as sin. Beneath the folds of red cashmere, the breasts rose and fell with her emotion.

  Jason said nothing but his eyes, as he studied the slender form before him, grew clouded and their expression was transformed slowly to one of impotent rage.

  'Yes,' he said at last, reluctantly, 'I do still desire you. In spite of what you are, in spite of the revulsion I feel, I do have the misfortune to desire your body, because you'
re lovelier than any man could bear. But that, too, I shall overcome. I'll learn how to kill my desire…'

  Marianne felt a thrill of joy and hope. Was it possible, after all, to round this tricky point? Was there victory to be won from the impossible?

  'Wouldn't it be easier… and more sensible, to let me tell you everything?' she murmured. 'I swear by my hopes of salvation to conceal nothing of what happened to me… not even the worst! But give me a chance… only give me one single chance!'

  She was longing now to plead her own cause, to tell him of all the suffocating horror built up in those past weeks. She sensed that she could still win him back to her. It was clear from the tormented, famished look on his face, the agony it revealed. She still possessed enormous power over Jason – if only he would listen.

  But he refused to listen. Even now, the words she said did not seem to pierce through the armour he had built around himself. He was looking at her, yes, but with eyes that were strangely devoid of expression. Her voice did not reach him, and when at last he spoke, it was to himself, as though Marianne had been no more than a lovely statue, an effigy standing there.

  'Oh yes, she's beautiful,' he said broodingly, 'beautiful and venomous, like the flowers of the Brazilian jungles that feed on insects and whose brilliant hearts smell only of rottenness. Nothing could be brighter than those eyes, or softer than that skin… those lips… nothing purer than that face or more captivating than that form… And yet it is all false… all vile! I know… and even now I cannot bring myself to believe it because I have not seen…'

  While he spoke, his trembling hands were touching Marianne's face, her hair, her throat, but there was no light in his eyes, they were like the eyes of a dead man.

  'Jason!' Marianne implored him. 'For pity's sake, listen to me! I love you, I have never loved anyone but you! Even if you were to kill me, my soul would not forget to love you. I am still yours, still worthy of you – even though you can't believe it for the present.'

  She was wasting her breath. He did not hear her, lost as he was in a waking nightmare, where his dying love fought for survival.